Reduced boron diffusion under interstitial injection in fluorine implanted silicon

Point defect injection studies are performed to investigate how fluorine implantation influences the diffusion of boron marker layers in both the vacancy-rich and interstitial-rich regions of the fluorine damage profile. A 185 keV, 2.3?1015 cm?2 F+ implant is made into silicon samples containing multiple boron marker layers and rapid thermal annealing is performed at 1000 °C for times of 15–120 s. The boron and fluorine profiles are characterized by secondary ion mass spectroscopy and the defect structures by transmission electron microscopy ?TEM?. Fluorine implanted samples surprisingly show less boron diffusion under interstitial injection than those under inert anneal. This effect is particularly noticeable for boron marker layers located in the interstitial-rich region of the fluorine damage profile and for short anneal times (15 s). TEM images show a band of dislocation loops around the range of the fluorine implant and the density of dislocation loops is lower under interstitial injection than under inert anneal. It is proposed that interstitial injection accelerates the evolution of interstitial defects into dislocation loops, thereby giving transient enhanced boron diffusion over a shorter period of time. The effect of the fluorine implant on boron diffusion is found to be the opposite for boron marker layers in the interstitial-rich and vacancy-rich regions of the fluorine damage profile. For marker layers in the interstitial-rich region of the fluorine damage profile, the boron diffusion coefficient decreases with anneal time, as is typically seen for transient enhanced diffusion. The boron diffusion under interstitial injection is enhanced by the fluorine implant at short anneal times but suppressed at longer anneal times. It is proposed that this behavior is due to trapping of interstitials at the dislocation loops introduced by the fluorine implant. For boron marker layers in the vacancy-rich region of the fluorine damage profile, suppression of boron diffusion is seen for short anneals and then increased diffusion after a critical time, which is longer for inert anneal than interstitial injection. This behavior is explained by the annealing of vacancy-fluorine clusters, which anneal quicker under interstitial injection because the injected interstitials annihilate vacancies in the clusters